Fases e interpretación metodológica de los objetivos específicos

Part One (1941-42)

The call to arms offered New Zealanders many things, not the least being an opportunity for travel while also doing the right thing by the country in fighting the forces of authoritarianism. If it is true that the Second World War cost Britain her Empire then it is also correct to say the war contributed to a change in attitude by New Zealanders towards Britain. John White and his contemporaries experienced this first hand in North Africa where the desert terrain represented more than just an open battlefield, unconstricted by the usual concerns of civilian populations. It was a location where the 2nd New Zealand Division could achieve a significant reputation as a force to be reckoned with. At the same time events offered a realisation that New Zealand’s societal subservience to Britain was holding the country back. The

insidious belief that Mother England knew best had been tested during the First World War without final resolution but it was exposed in the early days of the Second World War. The laissez-fair attitude of the Middle East High Command, best represented by the blatant untruth Wavell delivered to Freyberg that the New Zealand Government had been advised, and approved of, the Greek operation242 yet with countless other examples from the top level through to the lowest, was evident almost from the time the 2nd NZEF set foot in Egypt. Efforts to pick off bits and pieces of the 2nd Division frustrated Freyberg’s efforts to develop the Division in the manner he wanted. And from the outset, Freyberg was aware of the requirements of desert warfare. While he had to adhere, initially, to the diktats of Middle East HQ in relation to Greece and Crete, it was a much more assured, and forthright, Freyberg who prepared for the North African campaigns. But even so, it was to be 18 months after the Greek and Cretan fiascos before he felt an empathy with those in command.

John White was not surprised by events. This was in spite of Freyberg’s belief that New Zealanders were too hard on the English. “He thought we were a bit difficult in our criticisms of the British Army and things going wrong. He said we were the most critical people on the face of the Earth.”243However, Dan Davin put it

242

Paul Freyberg, Freyberg VC: Soldier of Two Nations, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1991, p.325- 326

243

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differently, “New Zealanders are by temperamental critical, censorious, alert, independent and above all interested.”244 White understood from the outset that Africa’s vast open spaces represented the opportunity to pursue the mobile warfare the 2nd NZ Division was best suited for. It was not something those in superior positions appreciated immediately. Before that happened he had to overcome the arrogance which assumed, by right, that the armies of the Dominions would kow-tow to the ‘superior’ knowledge of the Middle East High Command – most of whom were eminently less-qualified to be setting strategy than Freyberg – as he had learned at New Zealand’s expense in Greece and Crete. White said Freyberg had a capacity to understand German intentions, long before they were obvious to others. He spent a lot of time, even during the First World War, thinking about ways to beat the Germans. “He was always able to answer what the enemy was likely to do, and what they might do, and every time, all those thoughts were met by methods of dealing with that situation and, as a result, he was able to make judgments in the circumstances that did arise.”245

Freyberg’s first belief of what Africa represented surfaced in Britain where he had flown from Egypt after the 2nd Echelon of the 2nd NZ Division was diverted there to assist should Germany invade. During his visit he dined with Churchill and

impressed on him that Hitler would not succeed should he try to invade England but adding that if Churchill did not watch out he would lose Egypt.246 Some days later he was summoned to the War Office to meet with the Secretary of State for War,

Anthony Eden. Churchill had sent the Secretary a note: ‘Freyberg is home. Get him to write an appreciation of the situation in the Middle East. 27th June, W.S.C.”247

Freyberg said in his appreciation that once Germany had defeated France it would look to North Africa. Freyberg warned that armour would be needed in the desert to take them on, and that air cover would be an essential exigency to contain German efforts. The subsequent failure to achieve air cover was reflected in the Greece and Crete campaigns. White said this understanding of where Germany would turn next demonstrated that Freyberg “had an enormous grasp of the situation in its worst state

244 _{Dan Davin, The War Lords, Ed. Lord Carver, Pen and Sword Military Classics, Barnsley, 2005, e-}

book, location 13325

245

White, NAM, Tape 3 Side 1

246 _{Sir Bernard Freyberg, The World War (unpublished), p.66, Sir John White Papers, NAM} 247

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and in meeting the situation.”248 White believed Freyberg’s opinion was not acted upon because the British were caught within the grip of their own system. They had not yet realised the need to change and they were unable to extricate themselves from the possibility of invasion precluding all considerations of other aspects of their war effort.

There was a tendency throughout to treat the Middle East as a sideshow and, indeed, some of the Australian historians have said just that. But he [Freyberg] realised, I suppose, that the Middle East was being made a battlefield, and it was never intended to. The British system didn’t expect that. Everybody who treated it as a sideshow was to be proved wrong, and somebody who saw that in advance [Freyberg] was ahead of his time.249

The relevance of North Africa was realised only days after the New

Zealanders had been evacuated from Crete and the consequences would impact on their future in the desert. Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe on 15 June, 1941. It was an attempt to clear the German and Italian Axis forces from the Cyrenaica area and to open a path to besieged Tobruk. But on a disastrous first day the British lost half their tank force and by the third, and final, day were lucky to escape being surrounded and cut off from Egypt. That led Churchill to replace Wavell with Auchinleck. Freyberg was disappointed about Wavell’s transfer to India. There had been undoubted operational differences between the pair, who had been

contemporaries, albeit quite different personalities, in the British Army after the First World War. But, in spite of, the Greek and Cretan fiascos, the early inability to accept the right of New Zealand to determine its own operational role, in accord with

Freyberg’s Charter from the New Zealand Government, there had been no lingering animosity between them. Freyberg attended Wavell’s departure and was genuinely sad when he flew out to his new posting in India. ‘You could sense they were two men who understood one another,’ White said.250 ‘It had probably been too much for him’,251 White said.

248 _{White, NAM, Tape 3, Side 1,} 249

Ibid

250 _{Ibid, Tape 4, Side 2} 251

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Auchinleck’s arrival resulted in Freyberg having to go through the process of again restating the New Zealand Division’s right to be regarded as a unique force and not one to be broken up and used by the British at a whim. In one dispute between the pair, White recalled Auchinleck telling Freyberg he was acting like a fifth columnist in preventing the use of New Zealand troops in pieces.252 Auchinleck’s approach was not appreciated by the New Zealanders. Yet, a year later, after recovering from a shrapnel wound to his neck suffered at Minqar Qaim, Freyberg said to White, who was taking notes during a car trip into Middle East HQ in Cairo, that the only General at Middle East (HQ) with personality among the British was Auchinleck. General William ‘Strafer’ Gott got respect and affection from those he worked with, but others had only one quality – they did their best. However, Freyberg believed Auchinleck had one significant problem when first appointed - he had not fought Germans and did not understand them.253

Auchinleck, and the first commander of the 8th Army, Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham, believed that the most effective strategy against Afrika Korps Commander General Erwin Rommel’s Axis forces was ‘the Brigade Group System’ using smaller formations to give manoeuvrability. This was the system under which the NZ Division was to take part in Operation Crusader in November 1941 to defeat the Axis Armies and to relieve Tobruk which Australian, Polish and British forces had held in the face of several attacks. Tobruk was a block to General Rommel claiming Egypt, and the Suez Canal, for Germany. Into autumn, both sides were building up their resources for the battle. With the rest of Libya within his grasp, Rommel was preparing for another assault on Tobruk. Freyberg had doubts about the Operation and discussed his thoughts, privately, with Cunningham. White learned later of Freyberg’s disquiet which was based on the ‘piecemeal’ use of the Division in the Brigade Group System.254 Freyberg, and his Australian counterpart General Blamey, believed they should fight as divisions, who were in charge of their own artillery –a method the Germans employed. The Auchinleck-Cunningham demands affected the method of training and fighting that Freyberg had developed with the Division. Cunningham told Freyberg it was a brigade group war to which Freyberg

252

Ibid, Tape 10, Side 1

253 _{White, GOC Diary, 15 July 1942, NAM} 254

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replied: “Since when?”255 Cunningham’s war so far had only been against Italians. His strategy was based on the success achieved against the Italians in East Africa in late-1940 and early-1941. “The General said it was different against the Germans. Recounting the incident, he said General Cunningham’s comment was, ‘I think you are unnecessarily jumpy’, and the interview ended with the General’s [Freyberg’s] comment – ‘I hope you are right, but I think you may be over-confident.”256 White emphasised that Freyberg had been senior to, and more experienced than, any of the Corps Commanders and Army Commanders who served in the Middle East. Neither Auchinleck nor Cunningham commanded formations in the First World War and neither had experience with large-scale artillery deployment.

There was nothing, however, in General Cunningham’s background, training or experience that particularly equipped him to lead a large armoured force in the desert. In this he was typical of most of the British commanders of his generation, including his Commander-in-Chief, brought up on the experience of the First World War and the small colonial campaigns that had succeeded it. Unlike their opponents the British had never fully grasped the nettle of conversion from horsed cavalry to armoured fighting vehicles.257

Auchinleck did not encourage criticism or comment from lower-ranked officers and any who did speak up were soon moved on. But Freyberg could not be moved. While correct in his deference to their rank that did not prevent him

expressing his view. And at all times he had the security of his Charter with the New Zealand Government.

White, meanwhile, had been so influenced by his observations of Freyberg and the NZ Division in action, he started what became known as The GOC’s Diary at the beginning of September 1941. He chose that time because it was the second anniversary of war being declared. It had been his own idea and he thought he ought to write it because he felt he was witnessing something historic which needed to be recorded. “I had been extremely impressed, not only by the General but at all levels of military effort and, indeed, in the general behaviour and precision, and obviously the appreciation of people other than ourselves, of the New Zealand efforts.258 By the

255 _{General Freyberg, The GOC Diary, 22 November, 1941, Sir John White Papers NAM} 256 _{Ibid, p.5}

257

Michael Craster, Cunningham, Ritchie and Leese in Churchill's Generals, ed. John Keegan, Abacus, London, 1999, p.203-204

258

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time we finished on Crete I was extremely impressed by what he was doing, and how he was doing it.”259 Freyberg had an appointments book as his own diary, ‘that he was, or wasn’t, keeping’,260 White said.

I knew unit diaries were being kept, but no HQ diaries were being kept, I thought from the history point of view, and I suppose I had a sort of feel for history because history was one of my [school] subjects, and that it was really necessary if we were going to have a record. I didn’t tell him I was making a diary, or that I was about to start, but I started it and [then] explained what I was doing. And he was quite pleased. Freyberg played no part in it.261

The diary is quoted in many books studying New Zealand’s war effort. Historian Christopher Pugsley said White was always in the background for

Freyberg’s consultations and while the diary was called the GOC’s Diary, it was in fact White’s Diary.262 Pugsley said from his own experience in Britain when looking at the papers of Freyberg’s contemporaries like General Oliver Leese and Brigadier Sidney Kirkman there was nothing of the same detail. “All the discussions, everything you know, my colleagues at Sandhurst were enormously envious of the fact that this material existed. There is nothing like it for any of the other principles of the Second World War to that same degree, so that’s its quality.”263 _{White’s timing may have}

been fortuitous as some key actions for the NZ Division lay ahead.

As the New Zealanders recovered from their Greek and Cretan experiences they spent 10 weeks training with the 8th Army for November’s Operation Crusader. The Division had been replenished as a mobile unit in keeping with Freyberg’s belief in what was necessary in desert conditions. The use of transport involved the ‘full scale’ principle. Normally, infantry divisions did not have their own transport to carry all their troops but the New Zealanders were fully motorised. This gave them the ability to travel in open formation by night and day on a wide front, utilising flag signals in daylight and shaded light signals at night. Eventually the New Zealand Division’s mobility became a strategic weapon in the desert. Freyberg explained the

259 _{White, NAM, Tape 1, Side 2} 260 _{Ibid, Tape 11, Side 1} 261

Ibid

262 _{Christopher Pugsley, interview with Lynn McConnell, 9 October 2015} 263

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rationale later in the war – at the time of Crusader the NZ Division did not have command of their own armour and relied on support from British units:

We are a unique division. There is no other division of our kind in the Allied Armies or in the German Army. We can do all the jobs that are given usually to an armoured division and all the jobs that are given to an infantry division as well. We are stronger in weapons and equipment than an armoured division and stronger in weapons and equipment than the ordinary, honest to God, infantry division. We have an armoured brigade and two lorried infantry brigades (not motorised infantry brigades) and, in addition, we have the full equipment and services of the ordinary division. We have the same artillery with certain additions. The same sappers with certain additions. The whole of the force is put into fast-moving motor transport…When I move in my Tac HQ I can talk and give my orders on the move. This is very important…I tell you we are stronger in anti-tank guns than any formation in the world…each battalion has eight, the motor battalion has 16 and the anti-tank regiment has 64. We also have our own AA. Through our equipment and mobility we are admirably suited to making surprise appearances on the battlefield and that is what we are supposed to specialise in. We move out to a piece of ground of our own choosing which embarrasses the enemy and forces him to attack us.264

Freyberg likened the ‘light division’ the New Zealanders were, with the cavalry corps in the First World War. But there was a difference to the one-role cavalry. The NZ Division, like them, exploited gaps but were also able to carry out the functions of the infantry division. By having a light division capable of travelling long distances behind the enemy line, there was the opportunity to embarrass the enemy command forcing him to attack or withdraw. But as soon as ground possessed was no longer of assistance it was time to give it up and move somewhere else.

Throughout the Division’s training there were many ‘full scale’ exercises as the General called them. He believed in doing rehearsals to find out

264 _{General Bernard Freyberg to Officers and NCOs of 4 NZ Armoured Brigade, 27 January 1944, Sir}

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weaknesses. Live ammunition was always fired. He considered that casualties must be risked in training in order to save many lives when it came to the battle itself. The Corps Commander, General Goodwin Austin, was a keen observer and faithfully followed General Freyberg by night and day.”265

The New Zealanders made their move on Operation Crusader on 13

November. White believed there was a feeling of revenge among the New Zealanders as they set out. They believed they hadn’t had a fair chance in Greece and Crete but now they had air support, they had tanks and they could see the tools of warfare that had been delivered from England, the United States and Canada on a railway through the desert built by New Zealand’s engineers, and on the road, in a manner they hadn’t seen before. The impact of the re-tooled New Zealand Division moving en masse across the desert made a significant impression on White.